The fiery “Night Ride in Kaifeng” event, which has been banned by the authorities, has sparked various discussions. In fact, “Night Ride in Kaifeng” is just a part of the current popular trend in Mainland China known as “Iron Butt Travel”, reflecting the changing mindset of Chinese youth under the dual impact of the increasingly sluggish economy and severe unemployment.
On Chinese social media platforms, “Iron Butt Travel” has gained more and more attention and followers among young people. They are giving up expensive flights and high-speed trains, opting instead for the most time-consuming and cheapest options like green trains, buses, public transportation, or riding shared bikes for hours to make friends and taste local cuisine during long journeys.
The hashtag #ironbutttravel has garnered 19.8 million clicks. Their slogan is: “Youth has no price, iron buttocks depart immediately.” “For those with a tough butt, they enjoy the world first.”
On social media, the train route from Guangzhou to Lhasa, which is the longest train route in China at 53 hours, is a highly popular route among young people. Travelers on this route get off at major stops to enjoy local cuisine and admire the scenery, making their one-week journey more exciting than a lifetime for some.
Some young people have taken a bus from Beijing to Shanghai, covering 1608 kilometers and 1217 stops for only 349.8 yuan, spending 6 days exploring and enjoying food along the way.
Others have embarked on the Chengdu to Nyingchi bus route to experience the Sichuan-Tibet line, costing 550 yuan for a 51-hour journey. They jokingly claim they can sit through the journey! Anyone who can endure it is a true Iron Butt.
Some experimented by taking the hard seat train from Nanning to Kunming for 22 yuan for a 15-hour journey. Others endured a 36-hour hard seat trip from Chongqing to Xinjiang.
Travelers riding shared bikes are considered to have the toughest butts, with one student from Beijing University riding a shared bike from Beijing to Tianjin, covering 125 kilometers in a full 10 hours and 28 minutes. Another female student rode from Shenzhen to Hong Kong for a cup of milk tea.
“The main reason is budget. Iron Butt Travel allows me to visit more places with less money,” said 27-year-old traveler Peng Fei to CNN.
As the Chinese economy declines, people’s lives face an overall downgrade, with 42% of working people in 2023 planning to budget for vacations under 2000 yuan, and the youth becoming increasingly thrifty.
To save money, various budget travel strategies are shared on social media, such as a solo trip to the three northeastern provinces for 41 days to 20 cities, costing a total of 6500 yuan; or a solo trip to Liaoning Province for 21 days to 9 cities, spending a total of 3000 yuan.
Young people opt to stay at places like Hai Di Lao, McDonald’s, budget bathhouses, internet cafes for overnight stays, transitioning from long-distance trips to county tours, where they apply their money-saving attitude to tickets, accommodations, entrance fees, dining, etc.
The rise of Iron Butt Travel reflects the increasing economic downturn and severe unemployment in China, impacting the country’s youth.
Youth unemployment rates have hit new highs, with the unemployment rate for youths aged 16 to 24 reaching 18.8% in August and 17.6% in September. The proportion of recent graduates engaged in so-called “slow employment” or “freelance work” is increasing, making it difficult even to secure a job with a monthly salary of five to six thousand yuan.
The Chinese authorities prefer to lavish money on other things, offering no welfare assistance to these disheartened university students, instead admonishing the youth to “abandon arrogance and self-assertiveness” and “seeking suffering on their own.”
Faced with increasingly harsh job prospects and a politically repressive environment, today’s young people seem to have realized that instead of diving into bleak 996 work schedules and bleak job outlooks, they might as well embrace the concept of “lying flat,” pursue the freedom they desire and enjoy life.
Reports from mainland China reveal that more and more educated and decently raised young people are choosing to become urban “squatting youth” by staying at home or in rented rooms, extending from first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to second and third-tier cities.
A survey from 2021 showed that over 70% of “squatting youth” have higher education degrees, ranging from college diplomas to bachelor’s degrees or above.
A study from Peking University last year found that out of approximately 96 million urban residents aged between 16 and 24 in China, around 16 million (about 17%) have vanished, with a majority of them still dependent on their families.
“There are now more followers with the same ideas. Many are undergraduates on a gap year or recent graduates—many of whom are not wealthy. They are not eager to join the labor force or integrate into society,” Peng Fei told CNN. “Most of them long to explore other possibilities.”
At just 23 years old, Lin En has completed at least ten “Iron Butt Travel” trips since the end of 2023, accumulating over 300 hours on buses and trains.
“You see more on the road—things you wouldn’t see on a plane,” he said.
Mr. Lu from Beijing told Epoch Times that China’s current situation is terrible, and the behavior of young people reflects a primitive yearning for the future and a desire for freedom. Normally, they would seek to learn more skills or knowledge or engage in meaningful activities, but now they see no such possibilities or ways out. Once suppressed, those who pursue freedom, dignity, or something like the White Paper Revolution will be stifled by the government.
“But youth also have a primitive impulse—they must do something. They are actually lost and can only find release through actions like these,” Lu said.
Researcher Wu Se from the Taiwan Cross-Strait Policy Association told Epoch Times that in more mature democratic and free countries, while young people may not have much wealth, they have more space for creativity. They show concern for public affairs or participate in politics. In China, however, people have very limited opportunities for political participation, leading to a lack of hope for the future and being under a suppressed political environment.
“If young people see no hope or witness a more inward society, if the government or those in power focus all their energy on politics or ideological manipulation, young people will seek short-term liberation from mental burdens rather than consider improving their future lives or quality of life,” Wu said.